This blog (in Greek) shares a receipt from some Irish pub, where people had quite a party. The total amount is in Norwegian krone (NOK), which translates to about 2,555 EUR. But it’s not the total amount that is interesting here. Rather the list of drinks. In particular – 78 pints of Guiness.

Yesterday I heard the story of toasting origins.Â It sounded interesting, but somewhat unrealistic.Â It turned out to be true:

The practice of toasting originated in Ancient Greece, at a time when fear of poisoning was a significant concern. To put guests at ease, the host would pour the guests’ wine from a common decanter, take the first drink to demonstrate its safety, then raise his cup to the guests and invite them to drink in good health.

Today, yet more of our friends passed by to congratulate Maxim (and us) on reaching the important milestone – the age of 1 year. Plenty of presents, kisses, and hugs were mixed with lots of food and drinks. The result – excellent time. Kids are fun!

Curing hangovers is one of the most popular issues to talk and read about ever. I did my part of the research too, but it was as helpful as for everyone else. The fact is, if you’ve got yourself a nice hangover, there isn’t much you can do to get rid of it. You can make it slightly easier on you, by choosing to follow one of the billion advices.

Luckily, I found something better. In stead fighting the hangover, I simply prevent it. It turned out to work much better, and simplier too. How do I do it? Two simple steps.

Try not to mix different drinks. If there is no choice, than always drink the stronger one next. In other words – if you have to drink both beer and vodka, than drink beer first, and than follow it up with vodka. This way you won’t get as drunk, and you won’t have as terrible of the hangover in the morning. But this step is a minor one compared to the next.

Drink lots (and I really mean LOTS) of water before going to bed. The more water you drink, the better you will feel in the morning. Dihydration is the main component of the hangover, and you can’t fix it while you’re sleeping. So, just take care of it before you go to sleep, and the water you drank will last you through the night.

That’s it. These are basically the only two things I care about when I drink alcohol. And I haven’t had a hangover in years now. Except that one time, when I didn’t have any water before falling in bed. And that was one of the most horrible days of my life.

Yesterday, I had more than half a litter of vodka (with friends and food). When I came back home, I think I drank up the whole plastic bottle (1.5L) of water. Five hours later when I went for a walk with Maxim, I didn’t feel a thing. Like I wasn’t even drinking the day before. It was so good that it actually felt weird.

More and more often I am getting reminders that I am an adult and should act like one. Having been childish on my life (and enjoying that too) acting like an adult is tough for me. Even when I do it just to make fun of it.

Anyway, I was thinking over some things that I, trying to find a way to substitute one or another with an adult alternative. And I guess I found at least one.

Drunk driving no more. If I can predict that I’ll be drinking anything more than a glass of mine or a pint of beer – I’ll take a cab from now on.

And I did it today. I knew that I’ll have some vodka with friends in the evening, so I just called in for a taxi and it took me where I wanted to go. About eight hours later I called for another one, and it took me back home. I have to say that it felt good. It was better than I expected. Not only I wasn’t streetracing my way back home intoxicated, but I didn’t even have to think about if I was still capable of driving while drinking. I was totally focused on vodka and on having good time. And guess what – I had much more of both than I usually get while having considerations about getting back home. There is a minor price tag on that though, but I can manage.

In fact, I liked it so much that I’ll do it regularly from now on. And I recommend you do the same.

In you case you forgot, Limassol Grand Carnival is coming to town pretty soon. You can still get prepared though. Jumbo kids’ megashop sells a whole lot of stuff. Even if you don’t need to buy anything, I still recommend that you visit the place and look around. Olga and I were playing for about an hour there today only with the carnival stuff – hats, costumes, make-up, accessories – whatever you need. And it comes pretty cheap too.

We are still thinking what to buy for Maxim though. Pirate and Zorro are currently among the favourites. He’s definetely too young for a cowboy. And he won’t fully appreciate being Formula 1 Champion. Any ideas besides these?

It’s that time of the year again, when crowds of Russian people gather together in Kakomalis picnic place and do all sorts of cool stuff. Playing games, cooking barbeque, shooting lots of pictures, singing songs, dancing, and drinking lots of vodka.

While usually I rush to Kakomalis early after noon, today I only managed to get there by about 7:30pm. Still, I didn’t miss much. Most of the music part was still ahead.

This time was the 5th song festival. Each time it is different fromt he last and so it was today. First of all, the stage was at a different place. It was high up on the hill, so all the tables and people were reorganized quite a bit. Secondly, three core musicians (Albert, Doors, and Vladimir Kardash) had to leave early due to their own reasons, so the “pro” part of the concert was somewhat smaller. There was a new rising star though – Pasha. He was excellent. And multilingual too. And he didn’t limit himself to the usual Russsian and English. He went a few more, including the Turkish language. Truely, the music knows no borders.

Fewer people attended this time and most of them left earlier. I suspect mostly because it was rather cold – about +10C. Women and children are known to get frosty in such temperatures pretty quickly. Not to mention a few hours stay outside.

The party ended around midnight. Overall it was good, but I wanted more. That’s why I continued at one of my favourite kitchens down in Limassol.

I spent most of the day today at a sort of corporate party, that was up in the mountains and involved lots of barbequed meat and beer. Many people has quit the company since our last corporate party. And many new has joined. So it was a good thing to meet up at socialize.